


Sunshine & Brimstone (The Devil Went Down to Sedona)

by amserpand (panderams), doomed_spectacles, Tarek_giverofcookies



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: ABBA Songs, Action/Adventure, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Car Chases, Cheesy Music, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Friendship, Friendship saves the day, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Journey songs, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Marriage Proposals Gone Awry, Original Character friendship - Freeform, Other, POV Original Character, Post-Canon, Retired Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens), Road Trips, Sentient Car (not the Bentley), Tongue-in-cheek, going on holiday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panderams/pseuds/amserpand, https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomed_spectacles/pseuds/doomed_spectacles, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarek_giverofcookies/pseuds/Tarek_giverofcookies
Summary: While spying on Aziraphale, Heaven’s best agents keep “accidentally” discorporating, so Daniel, a slacker clerk in Celestial Wages, gets stuck with the assignment. Meanwhile, Nikola, a demon recently demoted for a job well done, gets tasked with watching Crowley.The demon/angel pair figure they have nothing in common until they follow their marks to a strange town in the desert where even stranger events keep happening. Unfortunately, the traitor angel and renegade demon they’re supposed to be watching are too wrapped up in each other to notice.A post-canon romp in which Armageddon is foiled, with very little help from Aziraphale and Crowley. Again.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Daniel & Nikola (OCs)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 34
Collections: Good Omens Mini Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mini bang!
> 
> I want to give a HUGE THANK YOU to [@amserpand](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/amserpand) and [@Tarekgiverofcookies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarek_giverofcookies/pseuds/Tarek_giverofcookies) for encouraging me. It's thanks to you two that the wackiness in this story was able to come forth and shine. This fic is zany to the nth degree and I wouldn’t have had the courage to embrace the zany without these two yelling at me to keep going. ILU both! <3
> 
> Thanks a TON to [ and @rhagfyre for the beta!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenroseSun/pseuds/PenroseSun)

**Cast of Characters:**

Aziraphale, an angel and part time bookseller who discovered several new hobbies in retirement and will tell you about them at length whether you ask or not.

Car, a rental car.

Crowley, an angel who Sauntered Vaguely Downwards, then discovered that stopping the Apocalypse didn’t really help with his anxiety.

Daniel, an angel who never met a shortcut she didn’t take, even when she wasn’t going anywhere.

Meleos, an angel and full time art critic who takes his job way too seriously.

Nikola, an angel who did Fall, but then settled in quite nicely on desk duty in Hell, which is basically the same as desk duty anywhere else.

Timmy, a horned lizard.

* * *

_[Hell, mid-morning]_

Nikola’s pager buzzed. She kept it in a pouch around her waist. Her pouch also contained lip balm, a small tube of sunscreen, a handful of almonds, and three hair clips. She hadn’t been Above in decades, so the sunscreen was probably no good.

The message was a summons from her boss, but because it was delivered via a pager from the late 1980s, all it said on the tiny screen was “6.12.” This could mean go to the -6th floor and see the twelfth Eric about something, or it could mean go to Dagon’s office, which was number 6, at 12:00. Or possibly she now had a project due June 12th. 

She sighed and set aside the ledger she’d been reconciling. Her rusty file cabinet groaned in complaint when she opened the drawer, and groaned even louder when she shut it. The clock on the wall of her office had been stuck at 10:15 for about fifteen years, but she could tell it was probably around 11 a.m. by the hungry rumbling of the hellhounds next door.

She locked the files, then locked her office door, per the policy and procedure manual she’d co-authored several years ago, when the demon Crowley suggested them. He’d read about the soul-draining properties of a standard operating procedure and Hell had immediately adopted them as a de-motivational tool. After spending a few years on earth, Nikola had volunteered to document Hell’s accounting, finance, and legal procedures and put them into a massive SOP. It had taken her approximately eight years, and earned her a demotion. 

Hell had a funny way of rewarding a job well done.

Dagon didn’t look up when she entered. There were three mismatched chairs in the office. Each chair had stained upholstery and something on the seat. She chose the chair with a bucket on it.

“You’re late.”

“I am? The page said-”

“Never mind,” Dagon snarled. “Nikola, your monthly audit report was exemplary.”

“Oh, good,” she said, beaming. A drip of something fell from the ceiling onto her head. Nikola grimaced and wiped a slimy string of green goo from her fingers. She considered moving to another chair, but didn’t think she should move the gigantic stack of papers on the one to her right or what looked like an active land mine on the one to her left.

Another drip came from the ceiling, this time sliding down the back of her neck under her shirt collar. Nikola considered putting the bucket on her head. No, that would be ridiculous. Wouldn’t it? She hoped this impromptu meeting would be quick.

“Not good,” Dagon said with a sneer. “Your miracle audit found three hundred errors.”

“And that’s… bad?”

“The rest of the department found _three_. Total!” Dagon pounded the desk, which caused the stack of papers on the chair to lean precariously. A green light on the land mine that hadn't been blinking before started blinking. “Now we have to report over three hundred audit errors to Lord Beelzebub.”

Nikola nodded, still unsure why she was sitting in her boss’s office getting dripped on by a mystery substance. Despite the closed door, the sound of the hellhounds eating lunch drifted in through the vents. Whatever they were eating was crunchy.

“If you hadn’t found these miracle errors, we wouldn’t have to report them. You see?”

“I- ah, well …”

“You’re being reassigned.”

“Reassigned? But I’m really good at-”

“Yes, that’s the problem!” Dagon shouted, banging a fist on the desk again. Both the stack of papers and the land mine in the chairs next to Nikola quivered. “We’re sending you Upstairs.”

“Purgatory? I thought the angels were in charge of it this century?”

“No! Earth. I have a special assignment for you, Nikola.”

She felt cold, and for once it wasn’t because the temperature in Hell swung wildly between the extreme ends of acceptable for an office on any given day. Her last coworker to be given a “special assignment” hadn’t come back. Nikola’s demonic familiar, a horned lizard named Timmy, pressed itself flat against her head.

Dagon pressed her slightly-webbed fingertips together and spread her thin lips into what may have been a smile. “You’ve heard of the demon Crowley?”

Nikola blinked. “Of course.”

“We want you to watch him. Report any suspicious behavior. Do it for one month without being discorporated and you can have your old post back.”

She perked up immediately. Another splash of goo fell on her right shoulder, but she brushed it off. “I can have my old job back?”

“Yes. _If_ you can make it one month on Earth with the demon Crowley.” Dagon smiled widely, showing several layers of very sharp teeth. She waved her hand. “See an Eric for Earth orientation. Doesn’t matter which one. We put it on a 150-slide PowerPoint.”

“I won’t let you down, boss,” Nikola said. She threw a salute, then realized that was a silly thing to have done.

“Whatever.” Dagon ignored her as she replaced the bucket on her chair and left the office. After she’d closed the door, she heard her boss let out a stream of creative curses as a fresh stream of whatever had been leaking on her shoulder splashed into the bucket, causing it to spill over and clatter to the floor.

One month. 

She could make it one month on Earth without being discorporated, no problem. All she had to do was keep an eye on the demon Crowley for one month. Then she'd get her old job back. No more leaky ceilings. No more cryptic pages or active land mines. Nikola smiled at the thought, then quickly scowled as she passed a pair of demons leaving the office of Torture Device Procurement. Wouldn't do for a demon to be caught smiling in the hallways of Hell.

* * *

_[Heaven, also mid-morning]_

“Daniel, have a seat." Uriel barely looked up as she entered. She pressed a button on a small remote control box that closed the office door with a pneumatic whooshing sound.

Daniel flipped the only unoccupied chair in the room around and straddled it. She tapped her hands on the back of the very expensive rolling office chair like it was a heavenly drum. "Am I getting a promotion?”

Uriel sighed. "No."

"Cool. Yeah, cool."

Uriel rolled her eyes. She slid a file across the transparent surface of her enormous desk. Other than the file and state-of-the-art multi-line telephone, her desk’s surface was empty. Uriel folded her hands and fixed Daniel with a cool gaze. "New assignment. You're to conduct surveillance on the Principality Aziraphale."

"The traitor?" Daniel's eyebrows went as high as they could go. 

Daniel had never been able to figure out why she was not a good poker player.

"We prefer to say he's on probation."

Daniel winked at her superior, utterly unconcerned with tact. "Gotcha. Roger Wilco."

Uriel stopped herself from rolling her eyes again with what appeared to be a great deal of effort. She took a deep breath, as if the brief interaction with Daniel was already extremely taxing. "Your Earth orientation packet is in the file. Go see Meleos if you run into any trouble. He’s been down there a while.”

“Meleos? _The_ Meleos? He’s still down there?” Daniel tried to lean forward in her chair, but almost fell over. She knew about every one of the angels sent to earth. She knew their names, ranks, and what their tasks had been. When a limited edition trading card had been minted of the archangel Gabriel delivering his message to Mary, Daniel had bought as many as she could afford. She still had one, in mint-condition, displayed in a glass case in her room.

“Yes,” Uriel said, looking more annoyed than usual. “He went into deep cover after the Renaissance. He should be down there doing… _something_. I’m not sure what, but he’s in Sandalphon’s division, so it doesn’t really matter. Don’t run into trouble and you won’t need to bother him.” Uriel’s tone made it clear that she both expected Daniel to run into trouble and that she really didn’t care if she did.

Daniel nodded. She used her feet planted on either side of the chair to wheel herself awkwardly closer to Uriel’s desk. 

“I know,” Daniel said, excited to put her knowledge of the angels who were significant enough to rate a place in her Heavenly Host trading card collection to good use. “He was put in charge of covering up the naughty bits when Senior Leadership changed the policy on nudity in paintings.” 

Daniel took the file and started flipping through it randomly, not really absorbing any of the information in it. She was still focused on the possibility of meeting such a high-ranking angel. If she played her cards right, maybe she could score an autograph, even. “His stats are _hella_ -impressive, though. Er-”

“Whatever. Off you go,” Uriel said, shooing Daniel away from her desk. There wasn’t anything else on Uriel’s desk to occupy herself with, so she re-folded her hands and looked up at the wall. The wall was also blank.

Once Daniel had disentangled herself from the chair and was halfway out the door, Uriel added, ”Oh, try not to get discorporated. If you do, we can’t guarantee you’ll get another body or transport back here. Shut the door on your way out, thanks.”

Daniel flipped through the file, then promptly forgot it on the table in the Celestial Wages break room next to the microwave. 

Someone had drawn a bearded stick figure with a halo on the sign warning the clerks not to microwave fish. That someone had been Daniel. She’d also drawn one hundred fifty-three miraculous stick figure fishes on the sign, obscuring the warning message entirely.

Daniel skipped merrily down to the Corporation Division to try on bodies, whistling an obnoxious tune as she went. If Daniel had read the file, she might have noticed that more than a dozen of Heaven’s top-ranked angels had been involved in suspicious “accidents” shortly after being assigned to surveil the Principality Aziraphale, with most of them leading to rather gruesome discorporation. Daniel, excited to finally leave Heaven and do something more interesting than Celestial accounting, was none the wiser. She did, however, return to her room to bring her trading cards with her to Earth. Just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this fic starts out as a road trip, [there’s a playlist for it!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1CKfP8hY7x38O1E3pJLZ37?si=NG7xPm8LRX2Ac-bQXMImhw) Fair warning, it is ridiculous.

_[Earth]_

Nikola pulled her rented Chevrolet Malibu into a Shell station and left the engine running. Hail Satan himself, it was hot in this corner of earth. She used the paperwork she’d been given at the car rental place as a fan and silently prayed for the air conditioning in the Malibu as it struggled against the oppressive heat of midday.

She’d sighted the demon Crowley’s car just outside the Las Vegas portal from Hell, located in the back of a predatory payday loan vendor in a low income neighborhood. It was next to an all-you-can-eat 24-hour sushi and steak restaurant/strip club and a dubious rental car agency that advertised Mexican insurance and absolutely no lemons. Nikola wasn't sure what lemons had to do with anything but they'd given her a very small car with no questions asked.

She followed Crowley for an easy hour’s drive. She kept one eye on the Corolla driven by the red haired demon and one eye on the scenery of the southwest. Several miles outside a town called Ash Fork, the nondescript grey Corolla she was tailing abruptly disappeared.

Nikola pulled off the highway at the next exit. She sighed, listening as the tiny engine raced to keep the air conditioning going. She'd been Above for all of a few hours and her target had already given her the slip! Keeping the renegade demon Crowley in her sights for a month might be more difficult than she’d anticipated if he kept disappearing out of thin air. Nikola shut off the car’s engine and went inside the brightly colored building.

She’d read Crowley’s report years ago on food found in what Americans called “gas stations.” From her brief experience on earth, the selection in the ones in the southwest didn’t disappoint. In his report, Crowley had claimed to have invented an iced drink with a flavor simply called “blue.” At the time, no one in Hell had known quite what to do with this. Nikola took a sip from a long red plastic straw stuck into the frosted drink and found that, indeed, the drink tasted exactly like blue. 

She picked up a few bags of salty snacks for the road and waved her corporate card at the teen behind the counter. Most demons had only a vague concept of economics, including her bosses in the Finance Department, so her credit limit was a few pennies shy of infinite.

When she opened the door, a blast of hot, dry air hit her face, physically knocking her back a step. The gas station interior was as cold as Hell, so the contrast was _bracing_. She got back in her Malibu and pulled back onto the highway, hoping Crowley's car would miraculously appear if she just kept driving.

About ten minutes into a public radio news program about endangered sea otters, a loud whooshing sound accompanied by a rush of celestial energy ten feet above her head scared Nikola practically out of her corporation. She jumped, spilling blue ICEE all over the dashboard.

“Drat!” she said, licking her sticky fingers. “What the-”

A white-clad figure with an eight-foot wingspan flew overhead.

Nikola pulled the Malibu roughly off the road and opened the driver's side door. What the Heaven was an angel doing flying in low loops above the highway? As they flapped their wings, great bursts of brownish red dust rose up in plumes. Acting purely on instinct, Nikola manifested a bow and arrow, hoping no one monitoring the miracle audit desk Downstairs would question it and rescind the corporeality of her weapon. She blew on the tip of the arrow to light it with a spark of hellfire, took aim, and fired.

The arrow just missed its mark, flying a hair under the angel's wing. Nikola watched the slim figure twist in the air, like a cat trying to land on its feet, before falling to the hot asphalt with a thud. 

Before she could think too hard about who she’d just shot at, Nikola ran to the figure on the ground. She was tall and thin, with spiky blonde-white hair, and black combat boots. Somehow even as she fell (and even as she parked her ass on the yellow stripe in the middle of the highway), her wings and the loose jumpsuit she was wearing had managed to stay impeccably white. The angel rubbed her head and looked around, confused.

"Are you alright?" Nikola said, now starting to panic. She held out a hand. The angel took it and Nikola pulled her upright.

"No I'm not alright!" she shouted. "You shot me! Was that hellfire?" The angel rolled her shoulders a few times and stretched her arms over her head before putting her wings away.

"I'm sorry! I thought you were someone else."

The angel scoffed. She tilted her neck to the left, then right. It cracked so loudly that it made Nikola wince just hearing it. "I mean, you totally missed, but still. _Ouch_."

The angel's irritation seemed to disappear as quickly as it had arrived. She put her hands on her hips and looked Nikola up and down. An amused look appeared on her face. "Where did you learn to shoot a hellfire arrow? They teach that in demon basic training these days?"

"I said I’m sorry! And, no."

"What?"

"It's not demon basic training! There is no such thing. I learned it from the Girl Scouts." Nikola put her hands on her hips, mirroring the angel’s posture. She was self-conscious all of a sudden, not sure why she was explaining herself to a mysterious angel who’d shown up right as she’d lost track of the demon Crowley. Mysterious and obnoxious.

"Huh. I thought y'all had basic just like us. Did you say the Girl Scouts?"

"Yes, if you must know, I was embedded in Troop 666 for a special project,” Nikola said. 

The angel's eyes were twinkling in amusement. She pressed her lips together tightly like she was trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

"Don't laugh! Operation Thin Mint was extremely successful." Nikola huffed. "And I learned several valuable skills."

"Well, brownie points to you, but if it's all the same, I've got an angel to catch. Ta!" The spiky-haired angel in boots wandered down the yellow stripe in the middle of the road, hands jammed into the oversized pockets of her jumpsuit.

Nikola turned back to her car, shaking her head. Fine, whatever. As long as this weird angel didn’t interfere with her mission, she could go suck an egg for all Nikola cared. She paused. The angel was obnoxious, but she hadn’t retaliated in kind when she realized Nikola hadn’t meant to attack her. In fact, she’d casually brushed off Nikola’s attack. Weren’t angels supposed to smite demons on sight?

A cloud of dust was approaching from the direction she’d been traveling when she’d spotted the flying angel. She shaded her eyes, watching it grow larger and larger in her vision. Nikola took a step back when she realized that, at the center of the cloud, there was a vehicle barreling towards them. It was going extremely fast and showed no signs of stopping.

"Hey!" she shouted at the strange angel, who didn't seem to hear or care.

The oncoming car's windows were tinted. It still wasn't slowing down, and had started swerving all over the road. It looked like a small sedan, but no matter how small it was, Nikola doubted the angel would survive getting hit at that speed.

"Darn it all!" Nikola muttered, then leapt at the angel. She brought out her own wings long enough to propel them both across the highway. The blue car sped past, just barely missing the angel's foot.

"You're going to get yourself-"

"They're getting away!" The angel yelled. “Hey, come back here!” She disentangled herself from Nikola’s grasp and started running after the car. Her boots slapped loudly on the highway surface.

"What? Hey!" Nikola jogged after her. "Where are you going?"

"The traitor Aziraphale and the Demon!" The angel shouted and pointed at the car, now a hundred yards away.

Nikola shaded her eyes and looked down the road, then back at her little Malibu waiting with the driver's door open. The bell chimed, happily reminding someone to close it. Nikola jerked her thumb at the car. "Come on! Get in - you’ll never catch them on foot!"

Not waiting for the angel, Nikola dashed back to the Malibu. She stowed her own wings, slammed the door and buckled her seatbelt. By the time she’d gotten the car in gear, the strange angel was sitting beside her, banging on the dashboard with her fists.

“Go!”

“Buckle your seatbelt or it’ll keep dinging!” Nikola shouted at the angel, who clearly had no idea how to sit in a car. She was practically folded in half, with one foot on the dashboard and her other knee jammed against the window. She stared at Nikola, uncomprehending.

“Seatbelt! _Now_!”

The angel rolled her eyes so hard Nikola wondered if angel corporations had sturdier eye sockets than the ones they gave to demons. She said, “Will you just go? How do you make this thing go?”

Nikola hit the gas and the Malibu sprang into action. Well, lurched into action. Its tires spun on the reddish brown gravel on the side of the highway, and both the angel and the demon inside gripped tightly to their respective sides of the car.

“That's them! Ha!” the angel shouted, as the Malibu miraculously caught up to the speeding vehicle. It was a blue Toyota Yaris with a vanity license plate that read: “ **OGSNAKE**.” The inhabitants of the car were both waving their arms about the interior, which looked far too small to fit a lanky demon and an irate angel.

“I thought they were driving a Corolla?” Nikola asked, squinting at the car.

The angel waved vaguely. “I don't know car species. But that's definitely them, speed up.”

Nikola pressed her foot all the way to the floor, but the Chevy Malibu simply wouldn’t go. It had made it to 93 miles per hour and resolutely refused to go any faster. 

“I can't make this thing go any faster!” she wailed.

The angel crossed her arms and sat back. “Fine. It looks like they can’t either.” The Yaris ahead of them had stopped accelerating. She turned to Nikola, seeming to notice her surroundings for the first time. “Who are you anyway?”

Nikola kept her eyes on the road, but extended a hand. “Nikola.” 

The angel shook it. “Daniel,” she said.

“So you're an angel then?”

“What do I look like, an aardvark?”

“I don’t know what an aardvark looks like! Oh, I'm going to get in so much trouble for this,” Nikola said, putting her hands back at ten-and-two position on the steering wheel. She kept her eyes on the blue car in front of them, but felt an adrenaline crash coming on as she realized she’d sort of kidnapped an angel, and not even the one she might get a commendation for.

“Aren't you a demon? How could you get in trouble for breaking the rules?” Daniel scoffed. She picked at her nails with her teeth.

“ _Believe me_ I can get in trouble! I’m not supposed to be talking to you.” Nikola chewed the inside of her cheek. Would Dagon know if she’d been in contact with an angel? This angel was tracking Aziraphale, and all the reports suggested he’d been inseparable from the demon Crowley since Armageddon had been called off. So maybe she could spin this. Yeah, she could spin this. Maybe this weird angel could even help her? Nikola glanced sideways at the angel in her car. She didn’t have any experience with angels, but this one seemed a bit … off.

Daniel’s voice brought her back to the desert in the middle of nowhere, Arizona. “Well pal, I don't know what to tell you but they're getting away again,” she said. Daniel put her other boot up on the dashboard and reclined her seat as far back as it would go. The Yaris Crowley was driving had leaped forward somehow, and was now going far faster than 93 miles per hour.

“Shit! Hold on!” Nikola eased her foot back on the gas, but this time she sent a ripple of demonic energy down through her foot to the pedal. Just a little encouragement to the “not-a-lemon” rental car she’d been handed the keys to several hours after leaving Hell. “And don’t call me pal!”

Beside her, Daniel whooped in delight as the tiny car leaped forward, tires screeching on the hot, sticky pavement.

The silence in Nikola’s rented Chevy Malibu was broken by a loud crunch. Daniel had found the bag of sunflower seeds she’d put in the glove box, then.

Nikola sighed, but kept her eyes on the dusty road. They’d caught up with the blue car the demon Crowley had been driving after a short, nerve-wracking minute at 150 miles per hour. The car they were tracking had briefly started smoking and swerving across the pavement, but then seemed to stabilize at or near the speed limit. Heat shimmers radiated off the pavement in front of Nikola’s eyes, making her drowsy. The air conditioning in the little sedan was struggling to keep up with the scorching sun beating down on them.

“Look, all I have to do is make it one month,” she said, finally, more for something to focus on than anything else. She didn’t owe this angel any explanation but she needed to either talk or listen and somehow Daniel didn’t strike her as the type who’d want to listen to endangered sea otter radio programs.

Daniel crunched a few more black seeds, then swallowed them whole. “Oh yeah? You only have to do this for a month?”

“What, you think you can do this for longer? We already almost died!”

From the corner of her eye, Nikoka saw Daniel stick out her tongue. “I almost died ‘cause you shot me, speak for yourself.”

Nikola took a deep breath and focused on the little blue speck in front of them. The heat shimmers rose up from the surface of the road again, blurring her vision. She blinked a few times. “Look, help me make it one month and I’ll help you stay alive, too.”

Daniel crunched on her seeds, then licked the salt off her lips. “Yeah, and what makes you think I’ll help you?”

“You’ve been down here, what, how long?” Nikola could feel her voice rising in pitch as she became increasingly annoyed with her angelic passenger, but she really didn’t care. “You were wandering around the highway with your wings out where anyone could see you! You lost track of them just like I did. And they already tried to kill us! Do I have to remind you that these are the two that halted Armageddon?!” 

She hazarded a glance at Daniel, who had rolled the window down and was waving her hand in the hot wind outside. Daniel stuck her face out the window and opened her mouth. Her cheeks flapped in the blowing breeze.

“Look,” Nikola said, heaving a sigh. “They bested Lord Beelzebub _and_ the Archangel Gabriel.”

That got Daniel’s attention. She pulled her head back into the car and rolled up the window. 

“The Principality Aziraphale and the demon Crowley stared down the Horsepersons of the Apocalypse, and _you_ think _you’re_ in _their_ league?” Nikola turned back to the road and scoffed. “Sorry, but I don’t think so.” It was mean, but true. An angel who swallowed sunflower seeds whole and wandered around an interstate highway on foot wouldn’t last a day against a foe as powerful as the demon Crowley, she was sure of it.

Daniel upended the bag of sunflower seeds into her mouth and, with her mouth full of salty black seeds, said, “Fine.” 

She held out her sticky, salty hand for Nikola to shake. “Do-gooder demon and know-nothing angel working together. What could go wrong?”

Nikola grimaced, shook it, then wiped her hands on her shorts. She returned her attention to the road, wondering what exactly she’d just agreed to.  


* * *

_[Earth, earlier]_

The grey Corolla pulled into the Shell station, smoking and making a very peculiar groaning sound, like the car was begging its driver for a swift death. It struggled forward, and managed to make it partway to a pump, before giving up with a choking gasp of exhaust. The car sagged, seeming to bow under the weight of its failure.

An angel exited the gasping vehicle, smoothing his clothes. He ran a hand down his front, as if concerned about the wrinkles in a finely-pressed suit, when in reality he was wearing a Hawaiian-patterned button-up and cargo shorts. He walked around the car, throwing his shoulders back and walking with his head held high. He had the indignant air of a passenger who was thoroughly dissatisfied with the quality of his ride and wanted to talk to a manager about it.

A demon wearing a dark tank top that exposed a series of unfortunate tan lines threw open the driver’s door with a flourish. He slapped the hood, causing the car to let out a pathetic wheeze.

“You wouldn’t have this sort of problem with a _vintage_ car! Say, a vintage Bentley! Humans,” Crowley said, scowling. “I don’t know how they used to make cars, but they’re clearly not doing it right anymore.”

“You wouldn’t have this sort of problem if _you_ hadn’t tried to push it from a reasonable speed to 190 miles per hour,” Aziraphale replied. He turned back to Crowley so that the demon could clearly see him pout. “This vehicle, unlike _your car_ , is designed to adhere to the laws of physics! I’m going inside to get a snack.”

“Get me a bag of those little bugle-shaped corn things,” Crowley called to Aziraphale’s back.

“Bugles.”

“Yeah, get me those.”

“I will not, because you’ll just put them on the tips of your fingers again. Try not to break the vehicle, Crowley!”

Crowley made a snotty face at Aziraphale’s back. He snapped his fingers and the grey Corolla decided to become a blue Toyota Yaris. The car perked up, seeming to refresh itself with the change. Inside, it gained the freshly-laundered smell that all rental cars had, one that never actually covered up whatever the previous occupant had gotten up to inside of it. Crowley snapped again, and the vehicle jumped forward far enough that he could reach the pump. He gave it a scowl, warning the car not to get complacent.

When Aziraphale returned from the station’s convenience store, he held out a cherry ICEE as a sort of peace offering. He paused to watch Crowley filling the vehicle and took a deep breath of hot, dry air. Crowley took the bright red drink and twitched his lips into a half-grin, which was returned with a high-beam angel smile. Before the pump switched off, Crowley snuck a kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek.

“Argh, you got more of those?” Crowley groaned as they pulled back onto the highway.

“They’re informative!” Aziraphale insisted, shuffling a thick stack of shiny brochures advertising local businesses and events. He flipped through shiny placards of happy people skydiving, going up in hot-air balloons, driving in inexplicably-pink Jeeps, basking in pools of water while being massaged, and reaping the many benefits of multi-colored crystals which could be purchased in bulk from high-quality dealers.

Crowley rolled his eyes and took a sip of red ICEE, immediately regretting it as his brain froze over. “Did I invent brain freeze?” he asked Aziraphale, clutching his head with both hands and warning the tiny car not to veer off the mostly-straight, mostly-empty road. “Do you remember if I told you I invented brain freeze?”

Aziraphale ignored him, happily sifting through the brochures. He opened a bag of salted nuts and set it on the center console. Aziraphale munched happily while he sorted the brochures into stacks that presumably meant something in the ordered mind of a part-time bookseller and retired angel. 

Crowley kept one eye on him and one eye on the open stretch of dusty desert road ahead. Aziraphale hummed while he read the text on a pamphlet for an outdoor arts village. He flipped to the interior of the pamphlet, where a beautiful courtyard was advertised as “ _PERFECT FOR WEDDINGS!_ ” The next page was an awkwardly photo-shopped collage of couples saying their vows in the chapel and kissing in front of ivy-covered stucco walls. Crowley gulped and turned back to the road.

“Was that-” Aziraphale turned and craned his neck to look out the rear window.

“What? It’s nothing! I’m driving here, angel,” Crowley sputtered. He stepped on the gas and brought the Yaris to 93 mph, then couldn’t get the struggling vehicle to go any faster. “Why don’t you turn on some music?”

“But I thought I saw something in the road! Crowley, you cannot keep hitting things, and-”

“One time! It was _one time_ , angel. Besides there’s nothing there now, is there?” Crowley made a show of looking in the rearview mirror but didn’t actually bother to look. “Put on the music and let’s get on with it. America is way too big to travel without road trip music and a few miracles.”

Aziraphale gave him a look, but switched on the radio. The little car swelled with the sound of 1970s arena rock guitar.

_Any way you want it_  
_That’s the way you need it_

“No!” Crowley punched at the console.

_She’s just a small-town girl..._

“No!” He punched the button again. Piano chords filled the air in between them, and Aziraphale swayed, smiling a little. 

_Lying beside you_  
_Here in the dark_  
_Feeling your heartbeat with mine_

Crowley hunched back in his chair and groaned. He put his head in one hand, resting his elbow on the window. Beside him, Aziraphale was swaying along to the sound of Journey, a blissful, clueless little smile on his face. Crowley let the song play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 notes:
> 
> -”I don’t know car species” was a truly excellent joke originally made by someone on Tumblr. I have tried but for the life of me cannot find the original post - if anyone knows the post I’m referring to and can link it, please send it to me! In the book, Hastur and Ligur create a “car-shaped object” to get to Crowley’s place and kill him. The joke both in the book and on the Tumblr post was way funnier than I just explained it.  
> -Speaking of car species, you don’t need to know anything about them in order to enjoy this fic. The cars mentioned in this chapter are the kind of uncomfortable and small models that would be handed out by rental car companies.  
> -Aziraphale grabs a handful of trifold pamphlets in the Shell station. I don’t know if this is a universal thing, but in the southwest you’ll find racks of brochures advertising local businesses and tourist destinations in gas stations and hotels. They often have terrible design and outdated information. Aziraphale collects them.  
> -Crowley’s rental car (when driving through the desert as a Toyota Yaris) is cursed to only play songs by Journey.


	3. Chapter 3

Nikola was sweating and it wasn’t even noon.

She had followed Crowley’s little blue sedan through a high desert town onto a small highway bracketed on both sides with dry-looking, scrubby pine trees. The road was designated “historic.” Daniel had argued with her for fifteen minutes over whether any stretch of asphalt deserved a “historic” descriptor. When the argument petered out, Nikola tried to find the public radio station but all the little car’s radio could find was country western music and Christian talk radio. Desperate to keep her mind occupied, she told Daniel about the sea otter program and they argued for a good ten minutes about the merits of anthropomorphising cute marine mammals.

They both shut up when the Malibu rounded a tight bend in the road, hugging the side of a steep canyon wall. Nikola’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, and Daniel had the presence of mind to stay quiet while she navigated the little vehicle past a series of hair-pin curves. A thin strip of metal on the side of the road was the only barrier between them and a thousand-foot drop to the bottom of a steep, rocky canyon.

Daniel released the grab handle and stretched her fingers. Nikola could tell she was about to say something obnoxious when she caught her breath. The Malibu rounded another curve and the landscape in front of them had changed dramatically. Red rocky spires lit by the morning sun jutted out of the forested canyon below. There were easily a half dozen rock formations, each with its own unique shape. Light bounced off the crimson rocks, making the colorful layers undulate under the warm rays of the morning sun. Pine trees marched valiantly up to each of the rocky plateaus before giving way to the ancient rock.

Nikola let out an amazed breath. Daniel silently met Nikola's eyes, then turned back to marvel at the landscape unfolding before them. Daniel rolled her window down and neither spoke the rest of the way into the valley.

An hour later, Nikola pulled into a parking space a few rows behind the demon Crowley's hissing subcompact Toyota. They watched, heads ducked down below the dashboard, as the demon exited, berating his vehicle. He pointed at it menacingly, and the car let out one sheepish beep. Crowley made his way to the passenger side and opened the door with a flourish, holding his arm out for Aziraphale to take. Daniel’s bushy white eyebrows went all the way to her forehead and her mouth formed an ‘o’ in surprise. Nikola shrugged. She was just as perplexed by the demon’s behavior but wasn't about to let it show on her face in front of her adversary.

Nikola and Daniel ducked behind rows of cars, following behind Crowley and Aziraphale but keeping out of sight. On the other side of a stone archway, they stepped into another world. Nikola cautiously entered a cobblestone plaza dotted by fountains, overflowing clay pots, and Spanish brickwork. It appeared to have been plucked from thin air and plopped into the wrong country, the wrong century, or both.

Their targets wandered aimlessly through the courtyard, occasionally bumping shoulders and pointing things out to each other as they walked. Nikola and Daniel stayed a few paces behind, ducking out of sight when either the angel or demon turned their heads.

Nikola pulled Daniel in the nearest door and covered Daniel’s mouth with her hand when Aziraphale pointed in their direction. She let go when it became apparent he’d been pointing to a mother duck leading a row of ducklings to the fountain at the center of the plaza. Crowley flailed his arms about and made a series of noises Nikola couldn’t decipher — but they seemed to be directed at the ducks rather than her and Daniel. She relaxed and looked around, realizing she’d pulled the angel into a boutique hat store. It was filled with racks of expensive and outrageous-looking accessories, everything from a leopard print visor to a rhinestone-covered cowboy hat with pink feathers sticking out of the brim.

“They’re shopping,” Daniel said, unimpressed. She pulled a large red fez off a rack and stuck it on her head, fiddling with the tassel.

“Yeah.” Nikola snatched the fez and returned it to the rack.

“We’re watching them shop.”

“Yes,” Nikola said, pulling Daniel out of the hat store. Aziraphale and Crowley had moved on to a clothing store across the plaza. Nikola wiped the sweat that had somehow accumulated in the crease of her elbow. It was running down her forearm to her wrist in salty rivulets. “And can you try to be a little less conspicuous while we do it?”

“What?”

“Just tone it down a little!”

Daniel pouted. Instead of sweating like a pig in summer, Daniel was practically glowing. The white spikes of her hair were somehow still perfectly pointed, despite the heat of the day and the brief appearance of a hairdo-crushing hat. Nikola's wavy brown hair was matted and sticking to her wet forehead.

“Tone what down?”

Nikola gestured vaguely. “This whole … _ethereal_ vibe you’ve got going on. It’s really obvious.” She looked pointedly at Daniel’s pristine white jumpsuit, which was incredibly stylish and miraculously untouched by the red dirt that surrounded them.

“At least I _have_ a vibe,” Daniel said.

“What? This is practical!” Nikola looked down at her linen shorts and patterned shirt. She was wearing a fanny pack, and was determined not to be embarrassed by it. Next to the hat store, she’d spotted a Hut of Sunglasses. Somehow she was sure that if they went inside, Daniel would find a pair that made her look even cooler than she already was, while Nikola would end up looking like a dweeb.

Daniel rolled her eyes, and Nikola rolled hers right back.

“Besides,” Daniel said, “at least I'm not dressed like _that_.” She pointed to a group of men and women dressed in long, heavy robes. The women wore various black and gray robes, while the men wore light-colored neutrals. They clustered together, muttering and earnestly holding out pamphlets to passers by.

Nikola made a face. “Yikes.”

They made a wide circle around the muttering group of strangely-dressed people, keeping an eye on their targets. Tourists dressed in heat-friendly colors and textures flowed by, most of them adorned with expensive jewelry and sporting artificially-enhanced tans. Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t exactly blend in with most of the crowd, either. Aziraphale wore a Hawaiian shirt with white linen shorts and sandals. Like Daniel, he also seemed to give off a joyful glow of bright energy. His white hair shone in the bright desert sun and if he were human, his pale complexion would’ve been tinged with the pink of a sunburn. Crowley wore a black jacket over a dark green top. His black ankle-length pants were so tight they looked painted on. His red hair was loose and wavy, longer than it had been in the photo included in Hell’s PowerPoint presentation. 

Nikola and Daniel waited, crouching behind statues and peering out from stone columns while the angel pulled Crowley into stores seemingly at random. They emerged from each with smiles on their faces and an ever-increasing number of bags hanging off Crowley’s arms. Aziraphale pulled Crowley into an art gallery and when they exited, the spindly demon staggered under the weight of an enormous box. Nikola felt a pulse of demonic energy as Crowley finally lost his temper. He balanced the box and bags in one hand and carefully snapped with the other, banishing their packages to the either. Or perhaps sending them out to the car. 

Daniel yawned and stretched her arms over her head. “If we have to watch them pick out matching outfits I think I might throw up.”

“They're not going to pick out matching outfits. I mean, they’re Heaven and Hell’s Most Wanted beings!” Nikola said, not entirely convinced herself. She leaned against a stone archway and watched as the demon Crowley tried to shove his hands in his pockets before seeming to remember he didn’t have any. Aziraphale was tossing coins in the fountain, then miracling them back out of the water.

On the balcony above the courtyard, a woman in a billowing white gown appeared to a smattering of applause. She wore a radiant smile on her face. Another woman in a similar gown appeared, and a photographer hung precariously over the railing to snap photos of them together as the people on the courtyard below cheered the happy couple. Crowley’s face turned a shade of red bright enough to match his hair.

“Okay, well I _hope_ they’re not going to pick out matching outfits,” Nikola said. She watched as Crowley and Aziraphale settled down on a bench, watching children try to splash in the fountain while their guardians shooed them out of it. Crowley was crossing his arms, but had a look of pure contentment on his face. Nikola was absolutely sure she’d never seen a demon with that expression before. As she watched, he yawned, then extended his arm over the back of the bench behind Aziraphale. He looked casually off to the side as he did it, but his knee bounced with a nervous energy.

Nikola sighed. “Look, I agree with you,” she said. “This is boring. But it's our assignment. There’s not much we can do about it. Besides, it’s better than getting run over. I mean, it is really hot, but I’d rather watch them shop than-”

It took her a minute to realize that Daniel hadn’t interrupted because she wasn’t there. Nikola whispered her name loudly, looking around frantically for the wayward angel. She caught sight of Daniel’s shock of white hair across the courtyard. Nikola glanced at Crowley, torn. The demon didn’t appear to be going anywhere. If she lost him again, who knows how long it would take before he resurfaced? Then again, this strange town nestled in a valley of red rocks wasn’t that big and it wasn’t like he had been causing the type of mischief she’d need to report to Dagon. Daniel, on the other hand…

Nikola scurried across the courtyard, dodging human shoppers and lost members of the wedding party from upstairs. She followed Daniel into a toy store. Daniel stood, glued in place, watching a miniature toy train make its way around the perimeter on tiny tracks. A group of children were heavily entrenched in a make-believe war. Next to Daniel’s foot, a girl in braids was barking orders to her siblings, a pair of boys who dutifully pretended to shoot at the gang of kids on the opposite side of the store.

Daniel grinned at Nikola.

“No, I don’t know what you’re going to do, but no-”

Too late.

Daniel snapped, then returned her hands to her pockets. She sauntered out of the toy store as the kids found their guns happily transformed into fully loaded water pistols. The girl in braids let out a great roar to energize her troops. She leaped over the tower of puzzle boxes they'd been using as a barricade and led a full-scale assault on her pint-sized opponents.

“Was that necessary?” Nikola asked as they returned to the plaza.

“No, but it was fun.”

Nikola sighed. They found Aziraphale and Crowley in almost the same position they’d left them. The only difference was Aziraphale’s hand placed gently on Crowley’s knee, keeping it still.

* * *

“So… what are they doing now?” Nikola squinted but couldn’t make out any details beyond a shock of white hair. Crowley’s ginger head blended in with the colors of the ever-present red rocks.

“Just sitting.”

“Sitting?”

“Just sitting! I mean, your demon is sort of _sprawling_ , but-”

“He’s not _my demon_. Describe it.”

Daniel rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful. She looked into the binoculars again and stuck out her tongue in concentration. “Okay, uhh, there’s a blanket on the table for some reason. It’s got horizontal stripes and vertical stripes in a pattern. Is there an earth ritual involving a table with a blanket on it?”

“I don’t remember reading about that in my orientation. You?”

“Nuh-uh,” Daniel said. “They spread out the food. Looks like fried sandwiches wrapped in foil. There’s little plastic tubs of sauces on the side. The bag says 'Tortas en Fuego.' Why didn’t we get sandwiches en fuego? We followed them through the driveby!” She pouted underneath the binoculars.

“ _Drive-thru_ , not _driveby_. We don’t need sandwiches and neither do they,” Nikola answered. She was sweating furiously and if she were honest with herself, really did want a sandwich. The afternoon sun bore down on her corporation’s sensitive skin. Not for the first time she wondered why the demon Crowley had taken the angel to this dry, dusty corner of the world. A faint breeze lifted the branches in a nearby tree, but didn’t provide any relief from the heat.

Daniel kept watching through the binoculars. “There’s a- your demon has something in his pocket. He keeps fiddling with it.”

“He’s not _my demon_.”

“Whatever, dude. It’s a… box? A little box. Is that some kind of demonic weapon? Was your demon in the Girl Scouts too?”

“Don't call me _dude_. And he’s not-” Nikola grabbed the binoculars from Daniel. “I don’t think so. Let me see.” The binocular strap was still around Daniel’s neck and the angel gulped as the sides of their heads knocked together.

“It’s a little box but I can’t tell what’s in it.”

“Told you. Not a weapon, then,” Daniel said, pulling on the strap but only managing to bang their heads together again.

“No, I don’t think so.” Nikola peered through the glass, hoping sweat wouldn’t leak down her forehead into her eyes while she watched the scene unfold. 

The demon Crowley was sprawled across a wooden bench, watching intently as the angel ate a very messy sandwich. Aziraphale was talking animatedly, but Crowley didn't seem to be listening. He held his chin in one hand, eyes fixating on Aziraphale's face. But under the table, he fidgeted with a small red velvet box. 

Crowley popped open the box with the hand under the table.

“He’s opening it! He’s opening it!” Nikola sat up straight, dragging Daniel with her by the binocular strap.

“Is he attacking the angel with it? I don’t know what your stats are but I’ve got a few moves that might do some damage,” Daniel said eagerly. She twisted her head around, trying to get out of the strap but ended up getting even more tangled.

“No, he’s just looking at it. There’s something shiny inside, but it’s really small. I can’t see it. Aziraphale, the angel, he’s just eating and smiling. Looks clueless. He smiles a lot.”

“Yeah I noticed that.” Daniel gave up trying to get out of the strap. She propped her chin up with her hand. “What are they doing now?”

Nikola wiped the sweat from her forehead and put the binoculars back up to her face. “The demon Crowley, he-” She paused. “Oh, he put the box away. Now he’s just looking at the angel. False alarm.”

Nikola lowered the binoculars and Daniel finally extracted herself from the strap. She flopped over on her back in the dry, scratchy grass and put her hands behind her head. “See, they’re just staring at each other and eating human food.”

Overhead, a tourism helicopter whirred, flying in lazy circles around the red rocky landscape. From their vantage point, they could see several tables like the one where Aziraphale and Crowley sat eating lunch. Each was secluded by overhanging willow branches. Nikola and Daniel lay on the ground on a flat patch of ground across the creek from the rogue angel and demon who were so dangerous neither Hell nor Heaven knew quite what to do with them. 

The creek burbled happily. Daniel closed her eyes. A moment passed, then two.

“Can I ask you something?” Nikola said. 

“Shoot.”

“The angel, you called him a traitor.” Nikola peered through the glass at the angel Aziraphale. He was gazing serenely at the demon Crowley, his eyes a sparkling blue. He looked as content as the demon Crowley had been earlier, only he wasn't trying to hide behind body language. 

Daniel hadn’t opened her eyes. She tilted her face up to catch what little breeze drifted over them. She looked like she might fall asleep and start snoring at any minute. “Well yeah, he defied the Plan, you know,” she said, unconcerned. “He’s on probation, I guess, but people started calling him the traitor around the office. I think Sandalphon started it.”

“Why do you think he did it?”

Nikola put down the binoculars. She shifted to lay on her side, facing Daniel. “I think I understand Crowley,” she said. She propped her head on her hand, thinking. “He’s a demon, after all. Hastur says he was up here for so long, his brain got a little warped. But why would an angel team up with him?”

Daniel didn’t answer for so long, Nikola thought maybe she had fallen asleep. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked up at the utterly blue sky above. “I think he was bored.”

“Bored?” Something in Daniel’s voice made Nikola pause.

“Yeah. I mean, think about it,” she said, turning to face Nikola with her head in hand. She furrowed her eyebrows. “He’s been down here _forever_ and he has _such_ low stats. I mean it’s like, kind of sad. Right?” Daniel's face was totally earnest. Her green eyes were large and incredibly expressive. When she talked, her face showed everything she felt. She looked reverent, as if she was a little proud of the traitorous angel who’d taken up with a demon and currently sat at a table with a blanket on it, eating a sandwich and getting sauce all over his face.

“So, you know, maybe team up with a demon just for a little excitement? Why not?” She shrugged but couldn't hide that she meant what she said. "Forever is _such_ a long time.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Nikola turned back to the oblivious angel and demon on the next park bench over. Without the binoculars, she couldn’t see them in detail but they hadn’t moved. They seemed content to sit and talk the afternoon away. She wondered idly what the demon Crowley had in his mystery box, and whether they’d find out if they watched long enough.

“Wait,” she said, “Stats? Did you say low stats? What does that mean?”

Daniel sat up and stretched her legs. Nikola did too, no longer worried about being spotted since clearly their targets didn't care about anything except each other. 

“Low stats! You know, his general… “ Daniel waved her hands in the air vaguely. “His moves! His moveset. When he had the sword, at least that boosted him a little, but without it Aziraphale is not a good card.”

“What are you talking about?”

Daniel dug in the pockets of her jumpsuit. She retrieved a rubber band, a green plastic army man toy, a hair clip, a large ball of fuzz, and a deck of cards. They were the same size as playing cards but instead of numbers and shapes, they had delicately painted depictions of angels. Underneath the faces were numbers Nikola didn't understand, grouped into categories. Some of the cards were shiny and bright, others seemed like part of a standard set.

“You collect these?”

“Yeah, they’re cool!” Daniel’s eyes lit up, a spark of excitement lighting up her face. “See this one? It's a commemorative card for the end of the Flood. See the rainbow in the background?"

Daniel shuffled through a few more cards. They were colorful and varied, some clearly very old and some brand new.

“But Aziraphale’s like, low level,” she said. She found his card and handed it to Nikola. “His stats haven’t changed much since he got to earth. Got weaker, actually. Gabriel had them lowered after a performance review in the fourteenth century, not sure what the story was there.”

The card showed Aziraphale standing stiffly at attention, in front of what appeared to be a wall-to-ceiling bookshelf. The angel she'd been watching merrily shop for high-end clothes and kitschy art was shown on this card in an old-fashioned coat and neckerchief. He wore a pained smile and one of his moves was listed as "Dissemble x25."

“Oh!” Daniel found a card and brought it to the front of the deck. “This one’s cool. This guy is supposed to be here somewhere, actually. On earth, I mean. Meleos. Super high level. He’s got some kind of lightning power move? Sounds badass.”

Nikola squinted at the card Daniel was holding. The shiny surface reflected the sun and she shaded her eyes. On the face of the colorful card was a scowling man with long gray-brown hair. He was wearing a plain brown robe that looked so generic it could’ve come out of any given time period except the one they were currently in. The look in his eyes was so intense, Nikola shuddered.

She handed the cards gingerly back to Daniel, who placed the stack back in her pocket. Nikola glanced back down at Aziraphale. He looked a little ridiculous now, but he had stopped the apocalypse and stood up to Satan himself. If someone like _him_ was low-ranked, what did that mean for her and the demon Crowley? Suddenly, Nikola had the feeling that a 150-page PowerPoint presentation and a brief stint in the Girl Scouts of America may not have prepared her for a month on earth.

* * *

"Nice place,” Nikola said. She’d parked the Malibu down the street from the driveway where Crowley had parked his strange, struggling car. They’d ducked their heads to remain out of sight while Crowley unloaded at least a dozen shopping bags from the interior of the vehicle, cursing under his breath and sweating in the evening heat. When the last of the bags had been unloaded, Crowley returned to the vehicle. He paced in a circle around it, saying something they couldn’t hear. Before he went inside the nondescript condo building, the car’s headlights flashed and he’d nodded, apparently satisfied.

Nikola marveled at the strip of sky visible beyond the line of luxury rentals. They watched as the horizon turned several shades of brilliant orange, before settling on a deep purple and finally, a starry pin-pricked black.

They watched the door of the condo from down the street as absolutely nothing happened for several hours. Finally, a light appeared in one of the windows.

“What can you see?" Nikola leaned over and snagged a few Fritos from the open bag on the console between them.

“Uhhh,” Daniel said, squinting into the binoculars, “they're smashing their corporations together.” She grabbed a handful of Takis from the open bag next to the Fritos without taking her eyes off the window. A thin curtain was drawn halfway but a pair of shadowy figures were moving about inside. “I don’t get it.” Daniel shrugged, smacking her lips.

“They’re not fighting, are they? You said the angel’s stats were low, but I don’t think Crowley’s a fighter, based on his reputation Down Below. I get the feeling he’s more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Daniel said. She bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know Crowley’s moveset, but whatever Aziraphale's doing must be super effective. Your demon is even more flexible than he looks. And he looks like a noodle."

“He’s not my- just let me see.”

Daniel handed over the binoculars.

“Oh,” Nikola said, “Oh, okay. Umm, yeah.” She set the binoculars behind the steering wheel gently. Her face felt her face growing hot, which meant her cheeks had turned bright red. Thankfully they’d kept the interior light off to avoid being noticed during their stakeout. She wiped her hands on her shorts, suddenly feeling a little grimy. “Don’t worry about it, just eat your snacks.”

Daniel shrugged. She licked the salt off her fingers, then stuck them back in the bag of Takis.

The pair sat silently for a few minutes, occasionally bumping hands as they reached for a Frito. In between the crunching noises Daniel made as she devoured delicious corn snacks, Nikola could hear coyotes calling to each other from the arroyo at the end of the drive.

Daniel put her bare feet on the dashboard and leaned her seat back. She put her hands behind her head and said, “What’s in it for you, anyway? One month, then what?”

“Oh, well, umm,” Nikola said, hesitating. She probably shouldn’t be sharing this with an angel. But, sitting in a bubble of silence in the desert, her responsibilities Down Below seemed far away. Daniel hadn’t said that she was bored with her assignment in Heaven, but she hadn’t needed to. Nikola fished a postcard out of her fanny pack. It was creased and soft with age, and the colors on the photo had faded. She handed the card proudly to Daniel.

“What’s this? A waterfall?”

“My old job! My dream job,” she said. Nikola took the card back and looked at it fondly. A figure in a barrel was just barely visible in the swirls of white water. The bottom corner was labeled: _Buffalo, NY, 1976_. Nikola smiled, and off in his own dimension, her familiar Timmy did, too. It was an approximation of a smile, anyway, since horned lizards always look like they’re frowning. “If I can keep an eye on the demon Crowley for one month without dying-”

“Getting discorporated, you mean.”

Nikola nodded. “Getting discorporated. If I can spy on Crowley for one month with no trouble, I can retire.”

Daniel’s eyes flicked to the image on the postcard. “In Buffalo, New York?”

Nikola nodded again. “It’s wonderful. They get over two meters of snow every year and I make it so that just when they think it's done, no more snow, _blamo_!” She clapped her hands. “Freak snowstorm in June! The food is terrible but they think it's great. There's humidity and bugs when there's no snow, and something called ‘The Lake Effect’ drives everyone mad. They go about their lives muttering ‘lake effect’ and it’s so easy to make everyone there miserable. Making the monthly quota of damned souls in Buffalo is a piece of cake.” Nikola sighed, fondly remembering her brief stint in Western New York.

“Sounds nice, I guess?” Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know who in Hell was in charge of this place, but they did a good job. Jack up the temperature and add a few traffic circles, suddenly everyone loses their minds.”

Nikola nodded vigorously in agreement. She didn't know who had been in charge of adding roundabouts to mid-sized American cities where no one was accustomed to them, but they deserved a commendation wherever they were. It seemed like something the demon Crowley may have cooked up. He seemed to have a particular affinity for transportation-related mischief.

“Add a massive disparity in income and rude tourists,” Daniel said, “and this place is set on permanent simmer.”

Another few minutes passed. Daniel upended the empty bag of Takis into her mouth and crumpled the bag. She tossed it in the backseat. "They still smashing their parts together?"

"Don't say-"

Nikola could see Daniel grinning at her in the dark and honestly couldn't tell if she was being had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is set in a mishmash of places throughout Arizona, some real, some not.  
> -The shopping center where Aziraphale loads Crowley with purchases is called Tlaquepaque Arts & Shopping Village. It’s very pretty and I’m definitely not wealthy enough to shop there.  
> -Tortas en Fuego is a real sandwich place and their food is legit.  
> -The place where I imagine Aziraphale and Crowley having a picnic is Crescent Moon Picnic Area - it is [absolutely gorgeous](https://images.app.goo.gl/d2bCjmESyD4un7oK8).


	4. Chapter 4

When Daniel woke, she wiped a string of drool running down her cheek onto the leather headrest. Her mouth tasted like she’d eaten a three-day-old chalupa and chased it with a wet sponge. Nikola was draped across the driver’s seat, head tipped way back, exposing her wide-open mouth and fleshy chin. She was snoring softly.

Daniel scrubbed at her face, blinking away the fog in her brain.

It was still early, but the purplish light coming over the ridge high above the condo complex where they’d spent the night brought with it a stifling heat. The inside of the tiny car felt like an oven being preheated.

Daniel yawned, stretching her stiff arms over her head. She bent her neck to one side, then the other with a satisfying pop.

“Whatimezzit?” Nikola slurred. The sleepy demon sat up, looking around the car in confusion. She blinked rapidly, then said, “Oh shoot, we were gonna trade shifts.”

“Top o’ the morning to you, too,” Daniel replied. She rolled down the passenger window using the crank handle that had miraculously appeared on the door but found that it was just as hot outside as it was inside. She checked her hair in the little sunshade mirror and made a few adjustments with spit and her fingers. “Doesn’t look like they went anywhere, though.”

Nikola adjusted her seatback to the upright position and looked out at the condo where they’d spent the night watching. The weird little blue vehicle was right where they’d left it. Daniel yawned as Nikola worked the kinks out of her corporation’s neck and shoulders.

“Had a dream I was being chased by the hounds,” Daniel said. She rubbed the back of her own neck as she remembered fragments of the dream. “Then I showed up for a performance review completely sloshed. That might have happened in real life, too, actually.”

“Hounds?”

“Yeah, Heaven Hounds. You know,” she said, grabbing a card from her pocket collection. She showed Nikola the trading card depicting the Celestial Canine division. “They look cuddly, but you do not want to wander into their play area with raw meat on the bottom of your shoes. Trust me on that.”

Nikola frowned, then opened her mouth like she was going to say something. Before she had a chance to speak, the blue car they’d been watching do nothing all night roared to life.

“Look alive, buddy, we’ve got movement!”

“Don’t call me buddy.” Nikola sighed but started the car.

* * *

They followed Aziraphale and Crowley’s car through town to a convention center where Nikola circled at a snail’s pace, trying to find a space for her little rented Malibu. Daniel kept pointing out spaces only to find out they were reserved for disabled patrons and Nikola refused to take one. Nikola followed traffic rules, speed limits, and city ordinances regarding reserved parking spaces to the letter. Daniel grumbled the entire time. _Of course_ she’d found herself paired up with a demon who followed the rules. By the time they’d found a space, Aziraphale and Crowley were standing in a long line of humans waiting to get inside.

The neon marquee sign on the front of the building said “Today: Gem & Mineral Show/Tomorrow: Solstice Vortex-Fest.” 

Daniel put on the mirrored sunglasses she'd bought yesterday. "This is a rock show?"

"I thought that was something different," Nikola said, digging through her fanny pack. She found a tube of SPF chapstick and popped the cap.

Daniel glanced at the line of people waiting to get inside. It was hardly 9 am but a sheen of sweat was already forming on her demon's forehead. At the ticket counter, a bored teenager handed two tickets to the Principality Aziraphale as he handed over nothing but a brilliant smile.

"Haven’t they gotten enough of rocks?" Daniel said. "I mean look at this place. It's nothing _but_ rocks! Mineral city, this place."

Nikola wasn't listening. She pouted at the chapstick, which had melted into a pink goo that had spread all over her fingers. She sighed and snapped it away with a little miracle, then cringed. "Hope they don't audit that one. Do you have to do monthly miracle reports?"

"Nah," Daniel replied. Then she admitted, "Well, actually, yeah, but I just get Jan to do them."

"Who's Jan?"

"She's just... Jan. What do you want, her shoe size?"

"Why would I want her shoe size, I just- never mind." Nikola stuffed the empty tube of chapstick back in her pack and retrieved a flyer. On it, an array of shiny gems were badly photoshopped onto a generic background. The title read “Gem & Mineral Show” in giant bubble letters. The demon who'd shot an arrow of hellfire at her yesterday cooed in delight as she scanned the pamphlet.

"Ooooh, look at this one!" She pointed at a rock that looked exactly like all the other rocks on the flyer, only purple. "And this one! It’s so pretty."

"Where did you get that?"

"The gas station. They had a whole rack of these." Nikola folded the flyer and dragged Daniel towards the entrance. "Come on, they have an enormous emerald I want to see!"

Daniel shrugged. First, she’d spent the entire day watching a traitor angel shop, eat, and make googly eyes at a noodley demon. Now Aziraphale was going to make googly eyes at rocks. Her brief stint on earth hadn’t been nearly as exciting as Daniel had hoped. 

Looking at rocks had to be slightly better than reconciling Celestial payroll records, though, right?

Nikola snapped her fingers and two lanyards with "VIP Guest” placards appeared around their necks.

Daniel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “ _Daniel Angel?_ Really?” She held the plastic name card up to her face. Nikola had created a fairly good picture of her. “With VIP privileges?”

Nikola gave her a sly look. "What? If anyone at the audit desk asks, I have to be able to follow the demon Crowley."

Daniel grinned and followed her inside. Her demon might be as square as they came, but she was crafty. By the time Nikola’s month on earth was up, Daniel was determined to get the demon to have some fun.

* * *

After looking at rocks for several long hours, Daniel dragged Nikola to the food court and made her buy them a giant sugary beverage. Daniel shoved two straws into the sixty-four-ounce styrofoam cup and bit the end of one. They wandered to the second floor and stood on the balcony overlooking the convention center floor.

"Look, more of those fashion disasters," Nikola said, apparently proud to be the second-worst dressed person in the crowd. She pointed at a group of people in heavy robes similar to the ones they'd seen yesterday. They were muttering and trying to hand flyers to people browsing booths of jewelry and polished stones. "What do you think they're doing?"

"Fundraising? Getting signatures for a petition?"

Nikola pursed her lips in an expression Daniel was starting to recognize as her ‘ _I don't know but I'm going to tell you a bunch of stuff anyway_ ’ face. "Maybe. We had a program for damned souls where their punishment was to stand for long periods collecting signatures for political candidates that had been convicted of sex crimes, but I think it was discontinued."

"Really? Why?"

"Too many convicted sex offender politicians, not enough damned souls."

"Huh."

As they watched, one of the robed men reached out to a woman wearing a cheetah-print tank top and heels. She recoiled, toppling into her friend, whose stiletto heel snapped. Both squealed while they crashed into a display case with several razor-sharp geodes. Nikola reached out and grabbed Daniel’s arm.

Suddenly the women were standing in their former positions as if nothing had happened. The geode case stood intact. Daniel and Nikola looked at each other, wearing the same shocked expression.

"Who did that?" Daniel asked.

"It definitely wasn't Crowley." Nikola pointed to the demon, who was lifting his sunglasses off his forehead and peering at a sparkly diamond with an intense frown.

“Not Aziraphale.” Daniel eyed the former Principality. His hands were buried in a bucket of polished rocks. He sifted them through his fingers with a happy look on his face. “Completely oblivious, both of them.”

"Oh! Those people are leaving!" Nikola pulled on Daniel's sleeve. She looked back and forth from the figures in robes to the clueless angel and demon pair.

"These two are boring. Let's follow them," Daniel said, pushing off from the railing.

"I can't just leave Crowley!" Her demon's voice rose an entire octave. Nikola practically vibrated with anxiety as the mysterious people left through the side exit.

Daniel sighed. "Fine, you go see what they're up to. I'll babysit the retirees," she said.

Nikola's plump face lit up with glee. A determined glint appeared in the demon's eye. Maybe her demon would get to have some fun, after all.

"Go get 'em, tiger."

"Don't call me tiger!" Nikola called over her shoulder as she jogged to catch up with the strange people in robes.

Daniel turned her attention back to the pool of humanity on the convention floor below. Humans of all shapes, sizes, and colors jostled each other, jockeying for a better position to look at brightly colored rocks. She took a sip of soda, feeling the sugar rush straight to her brain.

On the floor below, Aziraphale wandered from one booth to the next, peering down at massive geodes, intricately cut jewels, uncut stones, and necklaces filled with sparkling pearls. Daniel pulled a trading card from her pocket. The Heavenly Host card for Principality Aziraphale showed a man in an old-fashioned cream suit with a jaunty top hat in front of an ornate backdrop of books and old curios. His face was exactly the same as the man in a Hawaiian shirt below, but the energies given off by the two versions of Aziraphale couldn't be more different. Where the official portrait of Aziraphale was stiff as a board with a faintly terrified smile, the traitor below was completely relaxed. He gazed at a blue stone and chatted with nearby humans. His hands fluttered about as he talked. In the trading card portrait, clearly taken several hundred years ago, he held a hat in one hand and had the other hand straight by his side. Principality Aziraphale looked like a soldier who’d traded a uniform for a waistcoat. Current Aziraphale looked like a recently retired schoolteacher.

Daniel took another slurp of Coke. Her entire mouth tingled. She couldn’t imagine why they didn’t have Coke in Heaven. It was _fabulous_. She shifted her gaze to the demon Crowley. He paced the floor, keeping one eye on the angel at all times. Like he had been yesterday, the demon was preoccupied with a small box in his pocket. He brought it out several times and held it next to the shiny rocks on display, then shook his head.

When Crowley put his little box away and returned to Aziraphale's side, Daniel felt a flash of something so intense it nearly knocked her over. It had come straight from the angel Aziraphale, but she’d never felt anything like it. He was beaming at the demon, who flushed bright red but tried to keep his face arranged in a scowl. They held hands and walked around the rock show without a care in the world. The flash of celestial energy she’d felt had been strong. It was… love? Whatever had happened to the traitor Aziraphale on earth, he clearly wasn’t the same angel he’d been when he left Heaven. She put his trading card in its place in the deck with the others.

A few minutes later, Nikola reappeared, flushed, and wheezing.

“Hey,” Daniel said, raising her styrofoam cup in salute. “What’s up with the weirdos? These two have been making eyes at each other, so basically no change here.” She gestured toward their targets on the floor below. Aziraphale was sipping Arizona iced tea out of a straw in a giant can while pointing at a collection of Fabergé eggs. 

“Hey, so listen-” Nikola said, breathing heavy. “I found their leader.” She grabbed the giant cup and took a pull from the straw with no chew marks. “Okay, bad news. Or maybe it’s good? I don’t know anymore.”

“What is it, chief?”

“Don’t call me-” Nikola took a few deep breaths. She had sweat through her shirt in a circle around her neck that looked like a gross necklace. “Remember how you showed me those cards yesterday? That guy- the one with the lightning move? He’s here, it was him,” she said, still breathing heavily.

“You mean Meleos?” Daniel shoved a card in Nikola’s face. “This guy?”

Nikola finally seemed to catch her breath. “Yes! He was with those people in robes. They had tacky signs. They kept chanting.” Nikola put her hands on her hips and lowered her voice. “Stuff like: ‘true culture will rise from the ashes of the earth’ and ‘embrace duality to bring about peace’.” She paused. “Mean anything to you?”

“Nope.” Daniel slurped the last bit of soda from the giant cup and continued sucking on the straw until it made an obnoxious noise. “Well, that’s great, then!”

Nikola blinked. “Wait, how is that great?”

“I could get his autograph!” Daniel grinned and held up the card. Meleos’s broad face glowered out from a shiny silver background. His dour expression was completely at odds with the glossy, colorful surface of the card.

“Daniel. Focus, please.” Nikola’s serious face was back, with no trace of the mischievous glimmer from earlier.

Daniel threw the empty drink at a trash can and didn’t bother to check whether it went in. “Oh come on, he's a high ranking angel. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! When else could I get a signed card like this? Besides, it’s your turn to supervise these two. They’re not going anywhere except the food court.” She gestured at Aziraphale and Crowley, who were indeed headed in the general direction of the food court. “I can't believe Meleos is here in random-town, U.S.A. What are the odds!”

Nikola’s eyes narrowed. “What _are_ the odds, I wonder.”

Daniel jumped up and stretched her arms over her head, ready to saunter off. “I’ll ask him when I see him.”

“Wait, Daniel! Just be careful, okay?”

“Roger wilco,” Daniel said, throwing a mock salute. “Make sure the love pigeons down there don’t try to give all the gems taken from developing nations back to their rightful owners.”

“Why would-”

“Because it’s the right thing to do, duh.” Daniel rolled her eyes. “And it would cause chaos. Double whammy- good and bad.”

“That’s actually an impressively nuanced take on-”

Daniel groaned. “Ugh, not the point. I’m outta here. Later boss!” She turned on the heavy heel of her boot, jammed her hands in her pockets, and wandered off. A signed card of an angel who’d been down on earth this long would be worth a fortune in the secondary market for Heavenly Host cards. If she could bear to part with it, that is.

“I’m not your boss!” Nikola shouted at her back. 

Without turning around, Daniel tossed a wave over her shoulder. Maybe she’d managed to find some excitement on earth, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I’ve transported the Gem and Mineral Show from Tucson to Sedona. For the sake of fanfiction, I hope those who know the difference can forgive me.  
> -The Gadsden Purchase was the treaty which finalized the current border between Mexico and the U.S. Since Sedona was not part of the Gadsden Purchase (but Tucson was), it makes very little sense for it to be on display there … but did it really make a whole lot of sense on display at a show of rocks slightly closer to the border? No. And yet it was.  
> -I’m teasing it for later, but Sedona is an area famous for vortexes. You can read all about them [here](https://visitsedona.com/spiritual-wellness/what-is-a-vortex/). The only part I’m making up is the idea that there’s a festival for vortex-seekers. That might actually be a real thing, I just don’t know about it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by ABBA and Jeep, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Nikola followed Aziraphale and Crowley out the convention center’s side entrance. She entered a bright courtyard, with a multi-colored mosaic tile fountain in the center. On one side was a valet parking booth leading to a parking lot filled with high-end cars. On the other, a shady path was marked with a sign that read ‘Memorial Gazebo’. Aziraphale and Crowley meandered toward the path, hand in hand.

With a sigh, Nikola sat on a hard stone bench behind the fountain. Daniel was nowhere to be seen and their targets were on the move. Where had she gone? She felt a ripple of anxiety at the thought of the scary-looking angel she’d encountered earlier. Even though he hadn’t given any outward sign of noticing her, Nikola couldn’t help but worry. He’d looked exactly the same as he had on Daniel’s trading card and wore the same intense look on his face. She shook herself and focused on the sound of the water cycling through the fountain.

“Why are there so many fountains here? Isn’t this the desert?” she muttered to herself. If Daniel had been there, she’d probably be taking off her ridiculous boots and splashing around in it. Nikola smiled.

Just then, a group of people in robes exited through the side door.

Nikola squeaked, then ducked under the bench she’d been sitting on. The robed figures strode towards the parking valet booth. Three black Escalades pulled up to the curb and Meleos, the scowling angel, emerged from one of them. Tucked away in his own dimension, her horned lizard familiar hissed.

As Nikola watched, the group bowed their heads to Meleos. He scanned the courtyard, eyes skipping over her and settling on the path leading to the gazebo. Meleos snapped his fingers. Giant plastic water guns appeared in his surprised follower’s arms. They held them out to each other, comparing their size, neon colors, and features. The intense angel reached out and lightly touched the still water on the surface of the fountain. Nikola felt a thrum of celestial energy course through him.

Oh.

Oh no.

Meleos turned abruptly. His long robe flared around his long legs as he returned to the Escalade. The four humans who’d gotten super soakers approached the fountain and Nikola scrambled out from under the bench. She jogged quickly towards the path, not waiting to see the four robed humans fill their neon super soakers full of now-holy water.

Aziraphale and Crowley had walked through the wooded path, over a beautiful rounded wooden bridge. The creek happily burbled while birds chirped over their heads. Ivy curled around the gazebo. Sunlight filtered through the ponderosa pine trees, creating a dappled halo of light in Aziraphale’s white hair. He wore a soft, giddy expression. Standing close, Crowley held both his hands.

As Nikola rushed towards them, Crowley reached into his pocket.

Timmy the horned lizard appeared for a moment on her shoulder. He faced her pursuers and croaked once to tell her they had aimed their water guns. “Thanks, pal,” she whispered.

Crowley bent down on one knee.

“Look out!” she shouted. Nikola took a running leap towards the demon Crowley, knocking him to the ground with a burst of speed. 

A stream of holy water passed directly above Nikola’s head, sizzling a few stray hairs but otherwise falling harmlessly to the gazebo floor at the feet of one stunned angel. He bent down and dipped a finger into the water. His expression turned serious. Aziraphale took a step towards the figures jogging down the path towards the bridge, putting himself between them and Crowley.

“No!” Crowley shouted, flailing about. His limbs were so long Nikola had to roll out of the way to avoid being hit by an errant shin. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said, hissing a little through his teeth. Crowley righted himself awkwardly on hands and knees, then cast about with his hands on the ground, apparently looking for something and ignoring her entirely.

“Crowley! They’re coming!” Aziraphale whispered loudly, though Nikola wasn’t sure why, since the human cult members clearly knew where they were. The angel looked back and forth between the hooded figures and the demon crawling on all fours on the dusty floor of the gazebo.

When it became clear that Crowley was ignoring him, Aziraphale huffed. He snapped his fingers and the bridge disappeared. Four unhappy people wearing very heavy robes suddenly found themselves waist-deep in Oak Creek.

“Aha!” Crowley shouted. He snatched a little red velvet box from the ground and held it aloft. Then, seeming to realize what he was doing and what had just happened, he hastily shoved it in his jacket’s breast pocket and grabbed Aziraphale’s arm. “Let’s go!”

Crowley hauled Aziraphale out the other side of the gazebo. Both of them ignored Nikola entirely. She tamped down a rush of indignation and hustled after them.

Nikola caught up to the angel and demon at the end of the path. It came to an abrupt halt at the side of a parking lot. The beautiful wooded area on either side of the river was a peaceful oasis sandwiched in between hot asphalt and passenger vehicles.

“Crowley, we need to-”

Crowley looked around, still clutching Aziraphale’s sleeve, then snapped his fingers.

“There you are,” Crowley said in a weirdly proud voice, as his very small blue car came careening around a line of cars. It had no driver. The car came to a screeching halt directly in front of Crowley and Aziraphale.

“Angel! Get in,” Crowley shouted, holding open the door on the front left side of the little Toyota Yaris. Its engine was racing either with the sudden effort it took to speed across a giant convention center parking lot, or eagerness to please its demonic master. Or both.

“But-”

“Get in!” Crowley shoved Aziraphale in the car as gently as one could shove a recalcitrant angel.

“There they are!” a voice shouted from behind them.

“Get down!” Nikola yelled, again launching herself at Crowley. This time she slammed him against the tiny rental car’s door, breaking it off its hinges as a blast of holy water just missed them.

“Crowley! Get in the car this instant!” Aziraphale yelled.

“Oh-” Crowley said, as he realized he’d shoved Aziraphale in the driver’s seat. “America, _right_.” He shoved Nikola to the side as another burst of holy water surged past them. Both demons scrambled awkwardly into the car.

“Go, angel!” Crowley yelled. He snapped but instead of fixing itself, the driver’s side door simply fell off with a thud. Crowley shrugged. “Go! Hit the pedal on the right!” 

Aziraphale obeyed and the little Yaris leapt forward about six inches, then stalled.

Behind them, the four humans had gotten into their car, a black Escalade with menacingly-tinted black windows. It came barreling towards the tiny rental sedan. With a squeak, Aziraphale pushed the gas pedal down again, more gently this time. The Yaris jumped forward. He sped towards the lot exit, ignoring the painted direction arrows on the pavement entirely.

“Angel, that’s a-” Crowley tried to warn him as he barreled right past a “Wrong-way: Severe tire damage” sign.

“Hmm? Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” Aziraphale said, turning directly into oncoming traffic.

Nikola covered her eyes. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she’d be discorporated this way. She found herself thinking of Daniel as she was thrown this way and that around the backseat of the car. They hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye and for some reason that bothered her. Before she was crushed to bits by an angel without a driver’s license, Nikola mentally prepared herself for a return to Hell. She’d never see Daniel again. She idly hoped the bored angel with the trading card obsession was okay, and that someday she’d be able to complete her collection.

“Here! Angel, turn here,” Crowley shouted, pointing to a sign that read: _OFF-ROAD PINK JEEP TOURS!_

“Crowley, no!” Aziraphale nonetheless turned into a parking lot filled with dozens of 4x4 Jeeps painted in bubble-gum pink. “You can’t possibly-”

“Oh yes,” Crowley said, grinning. He met Aziraphale’s disapproving look and his grin grew even wider. Nikola suddenly remembered the interns Down Below whispering Crowley’s name with an admiration usually only reserved for members of the Dark Council. She’d heard a rumor that Eric’s predecessor had put up a poster of a mustachioed Crowley on the wall before Hastur had made him take it down. She’d never seen it, but the so-called “Tony” poster was legendary among the coffee-getting and copy-making demons.

Crowley snapped. His little blue Yaris found itself transformed into a shiny pink Jeep, albeit still missing its driver’s side door.

The black Escalade careened around the corner and entered the lot. The passenger window rolled down and a scowling woman in a black robe peeked her head out. She spotted Crowley’s red hair and started pointing emphatically. Crowley looked at Aziraphale. Aziraphale looked at Crowley. Nikola stared at both of them from the backseat, eyes wide.

“Fine,” Aziraphale said. He flexed his fingers a few times and cracked his neck. He shifted the Jeep into a gear it hadn’t had a second ago. On the shifter knob, the typical diagram with five speeds shimmered for a moment, then a set of angel wings appeared next to the R. 

“Everyone hold on, please.” Aziraphale shifted into the special gear and the Jeep took off. He gripped the wheel at ten and two, then checked his mirror positions.

“Yes!” Crowley shouted as the Jeep’s tires hit the gravel road, following in the tracks of a similar pink car full of sunburned tourists wearing floppy hats.

Smiling in the driver’s seat, Aziraphale said, “If we’re going to go sight-seeing, how about some music?” He selected a random station on the dial, then cheerfully bounced along with the song that blared over the Jeep’s speakers.

_If you change your mind (take a chance)_   
_I'm the first in line_   
_Honey, I'm still free_   
_Take a chance on me_

“Nope,” Crowley said, switching off the radio.

The pink Jeep containing two demons and an angel bounced its way steadily up the path. Huge, sharp rocks jutted out of the dirt surface of the road. Crowley leaned precariously out the passenger window and pointed out the big ones, shouting directions to Aziraphale as he drove. It wasn’t clear the angel was listening since he hit most of them anyway. Aziraphale had his tongue stuck out between his lips in concentration as the determined Jeep made its way along the side of a steep rocky canyon.

After he guided the Jeep around a particularly sharp curve, Aziraphale let out a quick, “Huzzah!” He grinned at Crowley before returning his eyes to the road ahead.

Crowley returned to his seat and stared at Aziraphale with an expression on his face that was so intense Nikola felt like she was intruding on something very private happening between a demon, an angel, and an abused rental car.

They came to a sudden stop. Ahead, a perfectly normal pink Jeep full of humans was paused in the road. The driver had a megaphone and was pointing out landmarks to the tourists who largely ignored him. They pointed cameras in all directions, leaning out the sides of the pink vehicle to get a better view of the vast rocky landscape stretched out before them. Nikola had been so focused on the bumpy ride over the rocky road that she hadn’t seen how high they’d climbed above the city. The late afternoon sunlight had turned the rock formations all around them from a deep red into burned umber.

Tucked away on her shoulder, Timmy puffed up his body and did a warning push up. That was lizard for “watch out!” 

Nikola looked back and spotted the black Escalade barreling towards them, throwing dust and rocks under its tires as they spun on the dirt road.

“Guys!” Nikola shouted. Through her binoculars, she spotted one of the robed women hanging out the passenger window. She had long, flowing purple hair and was aiming a rocket launcher directly at the back of the Jeep.

Crowley turned and saw them, too.

“How did they get rocket launchers?” Nikola shouted.

“Rocket launchers?” Crowley scowled. “ _Americans_!”

A blast rocked the ground directly to the right of the vehicle, sending it careening sideways. Nikola was tossed into the window, hard, and Crowley was thrown in Aziraphale‘s lap as he struggled to regain control. Both demons scrambled to right themselves as the dust cleared and Aziraphale accelerated.

“They’re reloading!” Nikola shouted.

“Everyone!” Aziraphale said, somehow still sounding prim as he shouted over the roaring engine and crunching gravel. “Buckle up, please!” He gunned the engine and set his mouth in a firm line.

Aziraphale took one hand off the wheel. He snapped.

Two tires left the ground.

The pink Jeep crawled up the vertical canyon wall, driving miraculously at a ninety-degree angle to the ground. Aziraphale gripped the wheel and held himself steady with sheer angelic determination as Crowley and Nikola flailed about the interior of the vehicle. 

Another blast rocked the ground next to the passenger side.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale yelled, finally panicking but not letting his eyes leave the path he was blazing across the vertical surface of the canyon wall. He kept his left hand on the wheel and reached for Crowley with his right. He grabbed hold of Crowley’s neckerchief as the passenger door of the beleaguered Jeep flung open. Crowley grabbed the passenger headrest and held on tight, shouting incoherent curses while his legs clambered for purchase on the sideways vehicle.

“Hold on tight!” Aziraphale shouted.

With another burst of divine encouragement, the Jeep’s tires gained traction on the rocky canyon wall. They climbed in a slow arc over the stopped Jeep full of humans below them. 

“The humans!” Nikola shouted. The woman in the Escalade was still pointing the rocket launcher and the Jeep full of tourists was caught in the crossfire. Several men in Hawaiian shirts and ball caps were pointing disposable cameras at her.

Nikola snapped, forming an invisible barrier around the Jeep below them just as the purple-haired woman fired. The blast ricocheted off it harmlessly, and the tourists inside cheered. The tour guide driver chuckled nervously into his megaphone.

As Aziraphale brought them level with the road in front of the tourist Jeep, the bumper and passenger door fell off. He kept driving for about a half-mile until the clapping and shouting of clueless tourists faded and the Escalade was nowhere in sight.

When he finally brought the Jeep to a stop, none of the inhabitants moved for a long moment. The only sound was the Jeep’s engine pinging as it cooled.

Then Crowley launched himself at Aziraphale, capturing his lips in a messy, passionate kiss. Aziraphale immediately let go of the steering wheel and threw his arms around the demon. They kissed with no regard for their surroundings, murmuring sweet nothings and gasping in the front seat of the partially-destroyed vehicle. 

Nikola watched the sunset from the backseat, trying to ignore the increasingly amorous snogging happening in front of her. They were perched on a steep ledge far above the valley floor. She could see the green line of the river winding its way through the canyon. On either side, the vegetation gradually gave way to pink and orange rock formations, dotted with pinyon pine and sagebrush. 

Crowley pulled back, breathless. His sunglasses were askew, exposing one yellow eye. He held Aziraphale close, and said, “Aziraphale, will you-”

Nikole cleared her throat.

Aziraphale turned his head. He said, “I’m sorry, but who are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Horned lizards do push-ups as a mating display/warning type of thing. They also puff themselves up and flatten themselves against the ground. (And shoot blood out their eyes!) They’re fascinating little things. [Here’s a video!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwQN8skyPJ4)  
> -Pink Jeep tours are a very real, very popular thing. The Jeeps are pink. They criss-cross the 4x4 roads all around the area, pointing out vortexes and other landmarks to sunburned tourists. [Here's what they look like.](https://images.app.goo.gl/8mBEvYX3js8h2Syy6)  
> -Crowley’s rental car (when transformed into a pink Jeep and driven by Aziraphale) is cursed to only play songs by ABBA. Because of course it does.

**Author's Note:**

> [this is me on tumblr - feel free to say hi!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/doomed-spectacles)


End file.
